Energy Boom or Bubble? Conflicting Reports

Two reports claim wildly opposite views on where the current shale gas boom is headed. David Hughes, a Canadian geologist and fellow of the Post Carbon Institute disputes projections of energy independence. A Univ. of Texas study confirms the boom.

To Hughes, shale gas and shale oil represent a temporary bubble in production that will soon burst due to rapid depletion rates that have only recently been tallied.

Exuberant projections by the media and energy pundits that claim that hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling "can provide endless growth heralding a new era of 'energy independence,' in which the U.S. will become a substantial net exporter of energy, are entirely unwarranted based on the fundamentals," adds Hughes in a companion article (paywall protected) for the science journal Nature.

"Every region in the U.S. which has shale development provides a cautionary tale," says (Deborah Rogers, the report's author). "Economic stability has proved elusive. Environmental degradation and peripheral costs, however, have proved very real indeed."

Gold provides some insight as to why extensive reports can present have such opposite findings.

One reason there has been a dispute over projections of shale-gas production is that much of the research, even inside universities, has been funded by groups with either pro- or anti- energy-development agendas. Many of the latter have strong views about the environmental impact of fracking on the air and groundwater.

Gold notes that one of the co-leaders of the report "is paid to serve on the technical advisory boards of BP PLC and two smaller energy companies".

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